


Exception

by directium



Series: Daniel's Descension [5]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Blood, Injury, Poison Mention, Shock, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 05:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11502615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/directium/pseuds/directium
Summary: He had never cared before. Death, blood, and the like had never bothered him before, either. But there was a first time for everything.





	Exception

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an AU I had on Tumblr where Daniel not only has to be stuck back at Camp Campbell under house arrest, but he actually begins to care about one child in particular. And of course, I had to make things sad and do the thing where I'm mean.
> 
> More info and context on the AU located here: http://directium.tumblr.com/tagged/Daniel%27s+Descension+AU/chrono

“What the HELL did you do?!”

He was used to blood. He’d seen more blood than this before. He hadn’t batted an eye when the blood of an unfortunate camper from his last camp had painted his usually-white clothes red. His only gripe had been about how difficult it would be to remove the stains.

He was used to death. He had seen how violently a child’s body would react to a number of different chemicals and poisons. The different ways they’d spasm, jerk and twitch before eventually falling still, never to move again.

He could handle blood. He could handle death. He had never cared before.

“WHAT THE HELL. DID YOU DO?!”

So why did the sight of that little boy, the little boy with those big, brown eyes and silly little fishbowl helmet (oh, God, it was cracked, he was going to be so upset about that), so mangled and broken, so BLOODY, leave him with a cold and shocking chill that spread from his chest to the rest of his body? Why couldn’t he feel his hands (was he trying to push Gwen away as she slammed him against the nearest tree and demanded answers?) or even vocalize that no, he didn’t do this? A wolf had wandered onto the campgrounds and…and… He might have killed the wolf. He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t think.

God, there was so much blood. That much blood outside a body that tiny usually meant…

“Gwen, he needs to go to the hospital!”

David was speaking. Daniel could see the anger and concern on his face as he hurried towards where Space Kid lay, but he couldn’t process it completely. Max and the other kids were there, too. He could see looks of horror on their faces, a look that he would have normally loved to see.

Not now. God, not now.

“Help him…Please…”

His own voice sounded so faraway. So unlike him. He could feel Gwen’s grip on his shoulders loosen as her anger ebbed into shock at his reaction. His face felt hot, and his eyes were burning. Was he crying? He was crying. Why was he crying?! He had never cried over a dying child before! He had never felt ANYTHING!

He could hear sirens in the distance (an ambulance? Police to take him away? Neither would surprise him) and he could see the boy, the sweet little boy with the cardboard astronaut suit, the one who hadn’t doubted him once in the entire time he had been stuck at the camp, the one deserved to suffer the least out of anyone there, stirring the tiniest amount as David attempted to bandage up his wounds long enough to keep the remaining blood from draining out of him.

He was still alive.

He was still alive…

He could feel his hands again, and used them to push Gwen off of him completely. “I didn’t do it!”

His voice sounded less faraway than before. “It wasn’t me!”

He found the strength to point towards the bush where the wolf’s corpse (oh, right, he HAD killed it) now laid. “There was a wolf!” he explained frantically. “I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t do this to him!”

That was a lie. That was a filthy, filthy lie. He had tried to hurt him in the past. He had tried to hurt all of them. And for the most part, he had no regrets about any of it. This camp and everyone in it was awful, _deplorable_ , and no amount of shattered religions or house arrests keeping him within the campgrounds would crush his desire to see every single one of them produce the same amount of blood that now littered the grass beneath their feet.

But that sweet little boy… 

The one would would point out the various constellations and planets to him late at night, up until he drifted off to sleep in his lap. The one who would place little star stickers on the front of his shoes when he wasn’t looking, which often resulted in him having to pretend to be bothered as he peeled them off in front of an amused and excited David. The one who had made a second cardboard spaceship specifically for him, because ‘going to space was no fun without a buddy!’.

He was an exception. He was THE exception.

And that had to mean _something_.


End file.
